Everyone has a role

Recently in the news, we've had election fever from America with the Obama vs Clinton campaign, from UK with the local elections mayoral campaign and closer to home the shocking results with the recent elections in Malaysia. It seems all these campaigns have a common theme: people want change.

So do we just vote for change because we are bored/unhappy of the current administration or are we voting with the opposition because we actually believe the opposition are really offering a better future?

I am not here to preach: everyone is entitled to their own opinion and have their own reasons for voting the people they decide to vote.

Last week, I attended a talk by Tun Mahathir Mohamad. No matter what people's opinions are of his policies and actions during his 22 yr old reign as Malaysian's prime minister:I think he is still one of the most influential and well respected people we should be proud of with the level of change he helped to form in what is Malaysia today.

The topic was on the Roles and Challenges of Youth for 2020. His main message from the talk was in order for our country to progress we need to ensure we have a clean government. It was inevitable there would be politically sensitive issues voiced by many people but the ex-PM handled the questions very well and took it in his stride. Policies which are aimed at improving the wellbeing of those less fortunate cannot be improved if it is abused. Rather than the policies being wrong it is often the implementation of these policies which are at fault.
His message to the youth today was take action in what you think is morally right no matter what your political views are. If we all do not act and play our role:Malaysia will have a bleak future.

I think the recent elections in Malaysia has indicated that Malaysian people are unhappy with the current administration. Malaysians should have the right to voice out these opinions and it appears that the majority have voiced out their dissatisfaction. We hope that this is the step in the right direction for a much fairer government.

So watch this space.........

Paris Je t'aime

I came into the office with that common TGIF feeling. As I was having my Pret egg & salmon breakfast baguette, Ezro called:

Ezro: "Wati, kat office ke? ?"
Me: "A'ah baru je masuk office..wassup?"
Ezro: " U ade plan ke this weekend?"
Me:"Ermmm...takde plan lagi..nak buat a bit of studying je kot...kenapa?"
Ezro: " Nak gi Paris tak with my wife? Manager I ade empat spare tiket naik Eurostar "
Me: " Iye ke??!! Bila? "
Ezro: " Hehe...tomorrow then come back on Sunday night"
Me: "Wow ...ye ke...hmmm....boleh gak... I've always wanted to go to Paris on the Eurostar..."
Ezro: "Ok settled...will talk later to sort out details..."

And that is how I went for an impromptu last minute visit to Paris for the weekend...

We left in the morning from Kings X St Pancras, London and arrived in Gare du Nord central Paris within 2 hrs. It is surreal to think that within a two hour train journey one could be in a different culture and different country. This is the beauty of living in Europe. After checking in our bags in the hotel we were famished for some foood...

The KFC Story

We heard that Paris is one of the few places in Europe which has halal KFC. Everytime i go back home..one of the first few meals I will have (after Mama's cooking which includes kangkung masak sambal belacan...yummy!) would be KFC chicken with the mash potato & gravy and coleslaw...
Kalau pergi airport , before I fly off we will always be sitting at KFC and have our last goodbye chat eating KFC.
So when I heard there was a halal KFC in Paris...I couldn't wait to go. Eiffel Tower and the Louvre can wait for a few more hours...hehe

We managed to locate this famous KFC and ordered our spicy chicken family bucket. As we started to tuck into our food we could hear people shouting. We thought there might have been a crazy person at the counter..a couple of tourists sitting beside us asked us what was going on. We shrugged our shoulders and said we didn't know either and just carried on eating.
A few seconds later everyone from inside KFC ran outside and we saw the police raiding inside the KFC restaurant. Momentarily, I though s**t! Another terrorist attack ke..
We all started running outside and headed out into the square where moments later the police had closed off the whole restaurant. Since my french is very basic...I couldn't understand what was going on even if I had asked the police officers..so we just stood outside and watched the police close off the whole area. We were all grateful that everyone was safe and sound but the sad thing was we could see our KFC family bucket being eaten by the birds outside....*sob sob*
We decided to head to Pizza Hut to drown our sorrows.......Onwards and upwards kan....
Later on that night we decided that we would head back to KFC for round 2 of the KFC family bucket....We thought that we were entitled to some compensation for our loss earlier in the afternoon and so the guys tried to get a free family bucket but it was to no avail. "No receipt, no free refund" ..Well at least we tried...anyways we brought the KFC family bucket safely back to the hotel. It was the best ever KFC I've had in a long time... "finger lickin good"!



Paris is a beautiful city....you can travel either using the metro carnet tickets or if you are clever you can get a youth travelcard with passport photos and you will be entitled to a one day travelcard for only EUR 3,20.

My favourite parts of Paris would be:

1. Walking along the River Seine with cherry blossoms showing signs of spring is a wonderful sight I will never forget..

2. The Eiffel Tower at night is absolutely stunning in the way it just glistens ..the view from afar is just breathtaking
3.The Louvre is grand in every sense of the word from the sheer size of the place and the museum in itself. I've never been to the Louvre before this so the only picture I had in my mind of the Louvre was the glass pyramid. When I actually arrived, I was stunned the Louvre is soo much more and in my opinion the pyramid seems out of place with the rest of the grand Louvre. I would love to visit Paris again for a Louvre trip in order to appreciate the wonders it has to offer inside.
4.The walk from Louvres to Jardin des Tuilleuries leading to Champs Elysees. This represented another side of Paris, the LV HQ which was massive...Kak Nor and Kak Oleen jangan jealous yah... :P next time we can go there together.

4. The crepes...i think the best one was actually the one we got at the Gare du nord on the way back to catch the Eurostar...crepes with nutella chocolat....simple is always the best.. C'est bon!

It was a short relaxing weekend trip which is what I needed before going 'underground' in the next few weeks...

A sad tragedy…….

Sufiah Yusof is a sad story about a Malaysian girl who had a gift that made her a Maths genius and was accepted at Oxford University at a young age of 13. You would think with the extraordinary gift she would have grown up to do many wonderful things.

Instead, we hear of a sad tragedy of a daughter who was unhappy and parents who might have pushed her too far up to the point she has been claimed of calling home “hell and vowed never to return back with her parents”.

It was thought Sufiah would finally get her happy ending in 2004 when she married a trainee lawyer Jonathan Marshall but unfortunately this was short-lived since they divorced thirteen months later.

Recently, her father has been jailed for eighteen months at Coventry Court after being found guilty for sexually assaulting two girls whom he taught in his home tutoring classes.

The sad story of this family continued when it was found Sufiah had resorted to the oldest profession in the book –prostitution and advertised herself on her website as a sex escort.

So where did it all go wrong?? This girl had a troubled childhood and parents who appear to have never listened to what Sufiah wanted. This had resulted in her rebelling against everything the parents wished for. There have been several times where she had cried out for attention and help e.g. when she ran away to Bournemouth to become a waitress in an internet cafe.

There have been reports that due to the recent incident the Prime Minister’s department and Malaysian Missionary Foundation (YADIM) are trying to provide help in a campaign called “Save Sufiah Programme”. I wonder whether this is a worthwhile campaign.

Firstly, her parents are permanently residing in UK and when her mom was asked to comment on her daughter’s recent activity her comment was "I didn't know anything about that. I am not in touch with Sufiah any more. I have got no comment."

I do sympathise with Sufiah’s situation but until she realises herself she needs help these campaign programmes will be useless to her. I do hope she will be able to get help but she needs to do this at her own accord.

In my own humble opinion, instead of the government spending time and effort saving this girl maybe it is worth thinking about the numerous other less fortunate girls who have no education and have to resort to the sex trade to earn a living in order to survive. It would be a more worthwhile cause if the government would spend more time tackling the root causes of troubled teenagers rather than focusing on this one person.

I hope Sufiah finds happiness in this life and the hereafter but I wish that the government could be as concerned about the numerous other teenagers as they are with this one girl....